Guayule plant is homegrown replacement for rubber

Jeffrey Martin, president and CEO of Yulex, shows off a guayule plant outside his company's plant in Chandler, Tuesday, August 19, 2014. The plants are used to make rubber and latex.(Photo: Tom Tingle / The Republic)

But the plot at Yulex Corp. isn't being used to raise garden staples. Instead, it's producing guayule (why-YOU-lee), a homegrown replacement for rubber that could help Arizona supply companies making everything from wetsuits to tires.

The plant has attracted millions in investment not only from Yulex, but from tire giants Bridgestone Corp. and Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. as well as the federal government.

If companies researching guayule as a rubber source are successful, Arizona is sure to benefit by fostering the new industry. That's because the plant grows well only in arid regions such as west Texas and southern Arizona.

Jeffrey Martin, president/CEO of Yulex, says guayule could reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and natural rubber for thousands of everyday products.

"We are totally reliant on other countries for a critical resource for the transportation, defense and medical industries," Martin said. "There is no natural-rubber industry in the United States."

At the Yulex factory near Chandler, a series of grinders and centrifuges extracts natural latex from the plant. The pure white, liquid latex is shipped in 55-gallon drums to companies that turn it into medical gloves, wetsuits and other rubber products.

Most rubber is produced from petroleum, although natural rubber is required for some products, such as aircraft tires. Even though about 2,000 plants are known to contain natural rubber, it is harvested almost exclusively from rubber trees in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, using a tapping system much like that used for maple syrup.

But tire companies predict the global demand for natural rubber eventually will outstrip supply.

A company called PanAridus in Casa Grande has a rubber-extraction facility and in September produced its first bales of rubber — solid blocks that look like giant, gummy brown art erasers.

PanAridus is shipping its rubber to Copper Tire in Ohio as part of a $7 million federal grant. Arizona State University is also one of the grant partners.

PanAridus also has patented nine varieties of guayule as it attempts to identify strains for different growing conditions.

"We've made guayule more adaptable to different soils and conditions, which should give the tire industry more confidence than ever that we've reached the age in which a domestically produced source of natural rubber can be sustainably grown over predictable periods of time," CEO Mike Fraley said when announcing the production.

About 1,000 acres of gua­yule are being grown in Arizona for the projects. That pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of acres of lettuce and other crops, but that could change.

"It is going beyond the experimental stages now," said Kurt Nolte, an agriculture agent for the University of Arizona who also serves as the Yuma County Extension director for the school. "It has grown from the research phase to more commercial operation."

Guayule is native to Mexico and the Southwest. It takes two years to get the first harvest, and a year each for subsequent harvests if the plant is not pulled from the ground for a new crop.

Jeffrey Martin, president and CEO of Yulex, stands next to vats of latex derived from guayule plants.(Photo: Tom Tingle/The Republic)

"This is a plant that is adapted to the desert and does quite well in our environment," Nolte said.

"At the moment, I don't see it as an enormous economic driver for the state," he said. "That could change in 10 or 20 years."

Big commitment

Bridgestone Americas Inc., a branch of the Tokyo-based tire company, wants make its tires from sustainable materials by 2050, and the Biorubber Process Research Center in Mesa and 281-acre farm in Eloy could help it achieve that goal.

"It is a long-term goal," said Bill Niaura, director of new-business development for Bridgestone Americas."The goal is pretty lofty, but also far out there. We're talking 2050."

The rubber that Bridge­stone produces, like PanAridus in Casa Grande, will be baled in large blocks. Bridge­stone will send it to company researchers in Ohio and Tokyo who will research its performance in tires.

The company has about 30 employees at the new Mesa facility and Eloy farm, though it could expand its operations if it succeeds at finding viable markets for the byproducts of guayule rubber, officials said.

Bridgestone seeks an economical model for using guayule rubber on a large scale.

"You can't just grow this thing and take the rubber out and throw 90 percent of the remaining plant away," he said.

Guayule makes about 1 ton of rubber per acre harvested. But that leaves about 9 tons of other material. Naiura outlines three possible uses for the remaining plant.

The first, and simplest solution, would be to burn the remaining material in a boiler to make electricity, possibly energizing a rubber-production facility or feeding electricity to the power grid.

"This is certainly a known technology, but it is not a home run," he said.

A second possibility is to use a process called pyrolysis to combust the material, which could yield natural gas and diesel-like fuels as well as biochar, a black carbon powderthat can be used as a soil additive for crops, he said.

A third possibility, representing a more technical but also potentially more lucrative alternative, would be to ferment the material into liquid fuels and, with a bit more chemistry, turn it into the synthetic materials.

"If the economics fall in line as well, we envision in the early 2020s being in a position to be making commercial quantities of guayule rubber for tires that actually go to the consumer," Naiura said.

Yulex also is working with other companies on markets for guayule byproducts ranging from particle board to fertilizers.

A market niche

Guayule produces latex without the high level of proteins that cause allergic reactions in some people, making it an efficient, environmentally sustainable replacement for natural rubber from trees, Martin said.

That creates an important market niche, Martin said, because latex allergies can be a serious health issue. Non-allergenic latex gloves have provided an important market for the company to build on. The company's other niche is in environmentally friendly alternatives to petroleum-based latex, which helped land recent deals with apparel companies Patagonia Inc. and Quiksilver Inc.

Yulex has been getting wide exposure from Ventura, Calif.-based Patagonia, which has been paying for major-market advertising for its wetsuits using a 60/40 blend of Yulex rubber and neoprene, made from petroleum.

Rather than keep the natural product for itself, Patagonia has encouraged other wetsuit makers to invest in Yulex, hoping to create an economy of scale, drive down prices and increase the use of the environmentally friendly material. Quiksilverof Huntington Beach, Calif., has joined the cause and plans to offer its own Yulex wetsuit and flip-flops made almost entirely of the material, Martin said.

Competitors encouraged

Martin said he doesn't see the dozens of companies developing guayule or synthetic-rubber replacements as competition because the demand for such products is so large and diverse.

"For this industry to be a success, it needs many players," he said. "The Phoenix area is becoming the epicenter for this new industry that is taking off."

Martin doesn't predict guayule-based rubber replacing all rubber, but is hopeful that Yulexcan play a big role in providing non-allergenic rubber.

While Bridgestone focuses on rubber for tires, Yulex targets medical and consumer products, and also on extraction and harvesting technology it can license to other companies. Bridgestone could become a customer of Yulex'stechnology, and Martin said the companies work together.

Yulex licensed its technology to a large energy and chemical company in Europe about 18 months ago.

Yulex has about 35 employees working at the demonstration biorefinery near Chandler, on Gila River Reservation land, and a research facility near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Government research

Martin was a materials-science engineer for Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark before purchasing the intellectual property developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provides the foundation for Yulex in 2000.

He was researching technology for a company called Safeskin, which became a division of Kimberly-Clark, when he came across the research of a USDA researcher in Albany, Calif., indicating guayule could produce non-allergenic latex.

The USDA also patented a method to extract rubber from the plant with water by grinding it and using a centrifuge.

Safeskin didn't want the technology, he said, but when the company was sold to Kimberly-Clark, he had the opportunity to pursue guayule.

A friend and colleague of Martin's named Dan Swiger licensed technology from the USDA in 1997 for a company he called Yulex. The licensing rights were in jeopardy of being rescinded without a certain level of investment, however, Martin said.

He struck a deal to retain the licensing rights and formed Yulex Corp. in 2000, acquiring the other company.

Martin was president-CEO and Swiger served as chief operating officer until he left the company in 2005.

"I bootstrapped the company for three years with no salaries and no outside investment," Martin said.

In 2003, he persuaded 10 farmers to invest in the company; that was enough to encourage the company's first private-equity investment.

Yulex has seen about $85 million in investments in the past decade, he said.